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Forum:Canon
Presently there's almost an edit war going on with some people adding branch templates and others removing them. I think we should put a moratorium on adding and removing templates until we get this resolved. At present, discussion only involves a very small number of people. PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) ) 15:36, September 8, 2010 (UTC) Spectres Commentary In the info page, you have down that Raynor sided with Tosh. However, there is no evidence to suggest that Tosh is the canon choice. Even in the Collector's Edition they never said which choice was actually canon, they just listed different outcomes in random order. That info is very misleading. User:ImperialGuard1 The bonus dvd says, according to our sources. -- [[User:Andra2404|'Andra2404']] !WARNING! Badge collector !WARNING! 19:34, September 5, 2010 (UTC) ::I looked through the bonus material. Never once did Blizzard ever say that there was a true story or canon choice. The guy doing the commentating was demonstrating different outcomes between one choice verse the other. He picked Tosh and Hanson first, then he went back and showed what could have happened if you didn't pick them. User:ImperialGuard1 :::Then why did someone remove the branching storyline for Gabriel Tosh ? -- [[User:Andra2404|'Andra2404']] !WARNING! Badge collector !WARNING! 12:12, September 7, 2010 (UTC) If they wanted to make it ambiguous, they wouldn't have made the cutscenes have a preferred variant. And as far as I know, they never said otherwise in the dvd. So, the evidence points to it being the true story.--Hawki 13:42, September 7, 2010 (UTC) :Well, if Hawki says that, then you have your explanation, Mr. ImperialGuard. -- [[User:Andra2404|'Andra2404']] !WARNING! Badge collector !WARNING! 14:38, September 7, 2010 (UTC) Still seems a little vague. Especially compared to this statement: "Question: With the branching paths you can take in the single-player campaign, like choosing to grab the artifact, how will it affect the canon? Dustin Browder: Right now, I think we're assuming that Raynor finishes the game and that it ends in one way, but we simply won't let those choices be a part of the canon down the road. Follow-up: Back during like WC1 WC2 you pick the Alliance or the Horde game, so it'd be like that? Dustin Browder: No, it will be like, we don't talk about the colonists from Haven anymore, because it would have been your choice as to how they lived or died or whatever happened to them, right? Follow-up: So they wouldn't factor it in. Dustin Browder: We do not factor it in. That content is yours right? We have given to you, the player. You decided what happened there, we didn't decide, and it's hands-off for us down the road." Taken from here: http://sclegacy.com/feature/3-events/670-april-19th-wings-of-liberty-fansite-qa-session I'm not so sure there's a canon choice. 08:06, September 15, 2010 (UTC) Hawki's Comments Right below a rant. Go figure... Anyway, I've been going over articles in the context of Wings of Liberty and Browder's comments on how choices are entirely up to the player. Since that pretty much includes everything after Zero-Hour at this point in time, that leaves us with the dilemma of either being really careful in editing or simply leaving out info. Neither option is particuarly appealing. However, using Wookiepedia as a source of inspiration, I may have an idea: Wookiepedia faces the same issue from sources such as Knights of the Old Republic, where the order of events or even what events occur are up to the player. In these cases, a template is used which declares how "this section assumes 100% completion of x-note that the events of this section may or may not be canon (can be seen in use here for example). This allows the in-universe style to be kept, but also reminds the reader that it's up to the player how this progresses. As WoL has a set ending and all the missions can be played, I was thinking it might be wise to implement a similar template (pretty much a copy paste), which would allow us to keep our in-universe style, but also be wary about making declarations without discetion. Thoughts?--Hawki 13:19, April 29, 2010 (UTC) I disagree that many missions are going to be "discarded". While there are branch missions, many if not most missions will be "required". Alas, since the game isn't out yet, and we don't have a complete mission tree, we don't really know what's canon and what's not yet. But yes, the template is a good idea, as long as it's keeping the branching information separate. PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) ) 13:23, April 29, 2010 (UTC) Did I say discarded? Meh. Anyway, at this point in time, it seems that all the missions we've seen so far post-Zero-Hour are branched, except for perhaps Zeratul's, as I'm guessing that's a major plot point. And if info gets back onto what we know to be certain, we can easily copy and paste outside the template section.--Hawki 13:48, April 29, 2010 (UTC) OK, been toying with the idea and keeping in mind Browder's statement on branching canon. That, and how it's seemingly impossible to actually get a 100% completion on a single playthrough makes me wonder if it can be applied. Still, if it can, got a few ideas that could be incorporated into the canon policy: -The template I mentioned earlier can be pretty much a copy-paste. The wording I think, could go like This section assumes 100% completion of x. The order of the following events, and even if they occur, are up to the player and are ''not endorsed by Blizzard Entertainment.'' So yeah-like the one on Wookiepedia, but reinforces that Blizzard does not deal with the branching info.--Hawki 13:57, May 7, 2010 (UTC) I think you just lost me there. What sort of articles would assume 100% completion? PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) ) 14:44, May 7, 2010 (UTC) **Well, basically anything that extends into the realm of personal choice, whether it be Meteor Station where it mentions that Raynor saves the colonists or the Tal'darim article, where it mentions their battles against him. Don't know if the former is actually choice based yet, but...--Hawki 22:24, May 7, 2010 (UTC) -Where the template can't be applied is where instead of just optional missions, some are mutually exclusive (guessing that's why not all missions can be played on a single playthrough), same as with Birds of War and Ground Zero. Where this is the case, nothing definate should be said that favours one over the other. -The question exists as to what order the missions are dealt with-it's one thing to assume that Raynor heads to both Monlyth and Agria as per the 100% completion designation, but the order of these events is something else entirely. I think a guideline of sorts can be developed, in that it's OK to say in the article that "after Agria, Raynor went to Meinhoff" (which distinctly happened after Agria) but not OK to say that "afte Meinhoff, Raynor went to Monlyth." The sections are best kept in seperate paragraphs, with no mention of which came first, e.g.: "...and on Meinhoff, Raynor saved the day." (New paragraph): "On Monlyth, Raynor retrieved an artifact, etc."--Hawki 13:57, May 7, 2010 (UTC) This is why I wanted to stick to what Browder said. In effect, the Evacuation of Agria is not canon (assuming there's a conflict) and doesn't get mentioned again. As a result, that mission should only be mentioned where relevant (eg articles about Ariel Hanson). So, under what circumstances would it even matter what order the Agria and Monlyth missions took place in? PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) ) 14:44, May 7, 2010 (UTC) Per Browder's words, I wouldn't call the mission distinctly non-canon, just entirely within the realm of personal canon that, at this point in time, has no bearing on Blizzard's canon. I take it from your words that you're not inclined to use the template-certainly I have my own doubts. However, does mean that Hanson's campaign will essentially remain a stub, as whether she even joins the Raiders is left up to the player.--Hawki 22:24, May 7, 2010 (UTC) Such a guideline can help us avoid making such statements. However, the question remains as to what order we present the points in. While I'd say for instance that it would make sense to go to Agria first, if only for the fact that it wouldn't be able to hold out against the zerg for long (which would theoretically prevent 100% completion), but that's subjective. Granted, such a policy might not be needed, as the policy states how the order is subjective (similar to the ambiguous timing template), but I think it might be wise to standardize the order, so that at least the characters' biographies follow the same events in the same order. We may be able to get a guideline of sorts from the cinematics DVD-it may give us some insight into mission order, which is perhaps as close to Blizzard canon as we can get. Barring that, a list can be made. I won't be able to get WoL as soon as it's released, so I can't react on the spur of the moment, but of what missions have been seen so far, I'd place them in the following order: *Liberation Day *The Outlaws *Zero-Hour *The Evacuation of Agria *Outbreak *Smash and Grab *Devil's Playground *Welcome to the Jungle *The Dig *Whispers of Doom *The Moebius Factor Hardly definate, but just my take for now.--Hawki 13:57, May 7, 2010 (UTC) There actually is a list of missions by number (for instance, I think Whispers of Doom is #11) but... I guess I'm just confused. I need an example of when you would have to include different variants in the same article. Even with articles like Second War (or Second Great War, or what have you) you'd just leave out the non-canon stuff. PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) ) 14:44, May 7, 2010 (UTC) **If I had to choose the term, and I think it's been used before on this wiki, "Second Great War" would be my choice I guess. Not entirely comfortable though, as the dynamic of SCII (looming threat, hunt for artifacts) is different from SC1 (zerg and protoss conflict with terrans caught in the middle). Hopefully we'll get an official confirmation at some point of what to call the conflict. Anyway, not including a designation for personal choice is OK, but under our own policy, it does mean some articles will have to be rewritten-off the top of my head, the Tal'darim are one (can't distinctly say Raynor fights them) ranging to characters such as Tosh (e.g. saying he wants to kill Mengsk and burn his Dominion seems OK, but stating that he admitted it to Horner isn't) and Hanson (lose the Raiders affiliation in CharBox template, remove any mention of post-Agria in the biography section, etc.).--Hawki 22:24, May 7, 2010 (UTC) Anyway, just some ideas that can be worked into the canon policy. Early days yet, but at the least, what has to be decided now IMO is whether the template or some equivalent is applied or not. If not, then articles such as that for the Tal'darim will have to be rewritten, as it gives events as occurring distinctly that may or may not be up to the player.--Hawki 13:57, May 7, 2010 (UTC) If I have a better handle on this now: Do you mean something like: In the Meinhoff article Overview History Recent History Branching History End If so, the branching template should not mention 100% completion, but just point out that this section hasn't been designated canon. I'm still not sure in which circumstances the order of non-canon events would be important. PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) ) 13:58, May 8, 2010 (UTC) The order of events isn't something inherantly important-what I wanted to establish was that the order of some events should be left out in some articles (e.g. alright to say Meinhoff comes after Agria, but not alright to say Monlyth comes after them). This is only really an issue for character articles such as Raynor, who gets to experience the whole thing, or a theoretical Second Great War article.--Hawki 22:49, May 8, 2010 (UTC) But that probably shouldn't appear in either example article. If we have two mutually exclusive branches, that information should simply not appear in either Raynor's or the Second Great War article. We only have a problem if you can follow both pathways in a single playthrough, but you get to pick the order. PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) ) 01:03, May 9, 2010 (UTC) The Meinhoff example you gave-well, that's at least assuming we get enough info to warrant distinct sections. As it stands now, we would have two options-remove all branching info in an in-universe sense (colonists of Agria didn't distinctly choose it and Hanson would "consider" it a paradise world rather than "describe" it) or use something to designate that some info is based on branching canon. If so, you raise a point about the 100% completion issue, not to mention that it's actually impossible to get 100% on a single playthrough. Maybe the wording could be: The events of this article/section include information from branching paths in x and may or may not be canon. (Probably obvious, but "x" can be HotS or LotV as well. Same principle, different name). The term article/section can pertain to articles such as Meinhoff, where there isn't enough info to warrant sections at this point in time and may not be at all. On the other hand, character articles such as Raynor can easily have sub-sections; to include the branching info in one with the template, and start another section when WoL comes back to compulsory missions. However, this in turn brings us back to the order issue if we're including this info, as to what order the missions are presented in. It would save us some edit wars to develop a best-take on the order of events, but avoid making reference to their order in the article.--Hawki 22:49, May 8, 2010 (UTC) But yeah, I support using the branching path template for articles like Meinhoff. I wish we had a mission tree, but for obvious reasons Blizzard won't release one ahead of time. PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) ) 01:03, May 9, 2010 (UTC) Official Line Courtesy of YouTube, access is avaliable to what appears to be the cinematic DVD. Interludes are also provided, which give a distinct line on events-e.g. it is directly established that Raynor helps the Agrian colonists rather than euthanize them. I'm inclined to use this as a direct portrayal, though still make notes of alternate storylines. This will make presentation much more succinct.--Hawki 01:13, July 30, 2010 (UTC) I have the cinematic DVD (I ordered the Collector's Edition) but I don't know if the DVD is somehow "canon", but I'll try watching it sometime. But in the meantime, take a look at Wings of Liberty missions and look at the chart. IMO, only the required missions (orange) and the Zeratul missions can be said to have occurred. (And Raynor has the option of not watching those.) Regardless, I want to spend some time this weekend hashing out an addition to the canon policy, so I'll have to watch that DVD tomorrow. PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) ) 15:59, August 13, 2010 (UTC) So the plan today was to watch the DVD. I can see the images fine. I can't hear a thing. Worse, the computer tells me the audio directory has nothing in it. Grrr... So I need to watch the thing on youtube, apparently. PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) ) 20:34, August 14, 2010 (UTC) :And the plan is still failing. Apparently the problem is my sound driver, not the DVD, so I can't even hear it on youtube. Where does it say which line of missions is "official" (or, more to the point, what does it say)? PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) ) 13:50, August 15, 2010 (UTC) I'll use Haven as an example (paraphrased): *Interlude 9"...Seeking to erradicate the infestation, the protoss seek to purge the colony. Raynor is left with a choice to save the colonists or euthanize them on the protoss's behalf. Unwilling to give up on innocent people, Raynor protects the colony from protoss attack. In the end, Haven is saved. Good Man plays out. *Interlude 10: "The following scene shows what would have happened had Raynor chosen to euthanize the infected colony." Infestation scene plays out. The same format is used for Tosh, establishing that taking out New Folsom is the true story. Basically it establishes the rough order of the entire chain of missions bar Castanar, and doesn't specify whether Belly of the Beast or Shatter the Sky is the true path.--Hawki 14:04, August 15, 2010 (UTC) Could you post a few more examples? That's not really convincing, actually, since they're not calling Safe Haven the proper mission. They're just describing the scenario (and they don't have a pre-interlude, or anything like that, where they could describe the beginning of both scenarios; obviously one has to be described first). (If you put a paragraph break before the word "unwilling", it looks even less likely.) It's also a bit strange, in that you can flat-out skip both those missions in the actual game (which is causing a canon conflict if we have to assume you must play those missions.) PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) ) 14:20, August 15, 2010 (UTC) :After days of wrestling with my sound drivers, I finally got sound back. Yay. PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) ) 13:36, August 17, 2010 (UTC) So I take it that you've got the official line then and the rough order? There is a limit I know-I did do a playthrough based on the cinematics to gauge the 'correct' order of the game. Which I've done. That, however, isn't something I'll force on others. Declarations of canon route, however, is something that we're obliged to go with by our own policy, such as with Enslavers.--Hawki 05:36, August 18, 2010 (UTC) Due to my horrid computer luck at the moment, I've only been able to just start watching the DVD. But at least now it works. So no, I can't say I have that yet, but I'll watch that as soon as I've gone through the last batch of edits. PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) ) 15:28, August 18, 2010 (UTC) Certain choices for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty have been established as a 'true story' via a behind the scenes dvd. A rough playthrough order is given and it is established that Raynor sides with Ariel Hanson over Selendis and Gabriel Tosh over Nova. These choices should be worked into articles, with alternatives mentioned/explained in a notes section. Choices which are not specified, such as the Belly of the Beast/''Shatter the Sky'' decision should be treated as variant information.--Hawki August 18, 2010 (UTC) And let's hold that for a bit longer. PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) ) 18:31, August 18, 2010 (UTC) So, I'm finally getting to listen to the DVD, with only about 20 minutes worth of time. *Groan* I seriously need an extra weekend. Looking at the listing of movies, it's just a listing, with no explanation for why it's in that order. In the above examples listed (eg Hanson over Selendis, Tosh over Nova) that's just the order given. However, I've yet to find those "interludes" and I don't know where they are. PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) ) 18:41, August 18, 2010 (UTC) For easy reference, here's the links for the four interludes that specify the correct path: *Helping Hanson *What if-Hanson *Helping Tosh *http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hFozwblxlk What if-Tosh] If it was just a cinematic presentation, I wouldn't bother. However, not only do we have interludes linking the cinematics, but we have specifications within those interludes as to the true story, rather than giving us two 'what if' options. As per our policy, when variant info is specified, we go with it. And looking over the interview, it seems that Tosh and Hanson won't appear in HotS, given the branching nature. So, it's the true story, without the burden of choices being carried on. It's a concept that isn't entirely foriegn from experience.--Hawki 12:30, August 19, 2010 (UTC) The interludes are much more convincing, true. I can't find them on the DVD, though. There's just the cinematics themselves (which don't come with interludes), behind the scenes (Making of Art/Cinematics/Design/Programming/Sound/Story), extras (StarCraft Retrospective, Zerg Trailer, Slide Show with no audio content beyond music, Cataclysm stuff). And to answer the inevitable question, none of the behind the scenes stuff had the interludes, which is what you'd expect in Behind the Scenes. Still, I think we can include this stuff, as I doubt anyone is just making stuff up and putting it on youtube, but instead of saying "true story" we should make it a little vaguer. (So, present both options, but point out the Safe Haven or Breakout options are "spotlighted" a better term than that in the Cinematics DVD.) PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) ) 14:42, August 19, 2010 (UTC) I've updated the canon policy in regards to the branches, taking a line from Wookiepedia in regards to its branching situations. A template could be useful, but if it is imposed, it should be at the top of the article or in a section, rather than presenting two alternating aspects. The templates disrupt flow and often leave large gaps in articles. Regardless, also made note that alternate storylines should be mentioned. For consistancy, this means applying the same criteria to the likes of Schezar and Ulrezaj for instance.--Hawki 13:08, August 23, 2010 (UTC) So I gather from the above, that as far as we know these interludes are not from a Blizzard source. Has there been a policy/convention change in the way we use fan works? Because accepting those interludes for face value seems to go against what I consider as normal practice around here. This would not be first time we have been lulled into thinking something professional looking was "official." I have just run into a claim on the Haven article referencing those interludes, and would like to know whether we are allowing it to stand or if I should be getting rid of them for referencing a fan work. - Meco (talk, ) 01:12, August 29, 2010 (UTC) Psi might disagree, but from the above conversation, and from what is already written into the canon policy, the branching templates need to be cut back. If it was just a list of cinematics, I wouldn't be pressing this, but as the interludes clearly say Raynor does x, Raynor helps y instead of z, etc., it's a case of establishing the full story. Right now, the only WoL pieces that require the branch templates are Piercing the Shroud (never referenced) and Belly of the Beast/Shatter the Sky (isn't specified which path is taken).--Hawki 01:20, August 29, 2010 (UTC) Edit: Also, the interludes are from the dvd. They weren't created by the user. As this shows, interludes have been found by other users.--Hawki 01:21, August 29, 2010 (UTC) True, but I can't find them in context. Also, they're kind of vague. PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) ) 15:36, September 8, 2010 (UTC) Considering Activision plans to release a cinematic adaptation of Blizzard's cutscenes, the dvd ones make even more sense. Mini adaptation via interludes, full adaptation later. We have two actual products compared to a few comments made months ago.--Hawki 11:41, September 16, 2010 (UTC) Andra's Comments I know some people are going to demand my head on a platter and probably organize a torch and pitch fork mob, but here goes. We have, scattered throughout the wiki, tags that state that the canon might not be canon because of the way the SC2 campaign runs (player has his or her own choice). My proposition is, what if there is no "canon" and Blizzard is simply allowing the player to carve his or her own "canon" with the decisions made in the campaign? For example, a more "good" Raynor by taking Matt's and Ariel's missons or a more "evil" Raynor by taking Tychus' and Tosh's missions, and the affect this would have on the game's story and future games is however the player does it, sorta like how it's done in the Mass Effect series and the character import: If you save the Citadel Council members in ME1, then they're alive and well in ME2 and other races tend be a little warmer and nicer towards humans. If you let the council die, then the other races tend to be a little more hostile in ME2. Certain events are different depending on your actions. As a result, there really is no "canon Commander Shepherd". The "canon Commander Shepherd" is whatever YOU, the player deem it to be. The Commander can be a dude or a chick, a hero or a bastard, a sniper or a soldier, he can fall in love with the hot genetically engineered chick, or the insane walking piece of art chick. It's all up to the player, and I'm wondering if SC2 will be the same way. Decisions in WoL, might make certain things different in HotS, and decisions in HotS might make things different in LotV. Tanooki1432 19:01, July 22, 2010 (UTC) We do have a policy on this kind of thing. Based on Blizzard's statements, the story of Wings of Liberty has a set beginning and end (that's canon) and branching middle points. Blizzard says they will not refer to the branching paths afterward, and they're not canon. We can't go against what Blizzard says. At least not unless they change their minds. Because those events are not referred to later in the series, we should assume that decisions made in Wings of Liberty are not carried over into Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void. The tag system is currently a mess though; until the game is out, we don't really know what's a branch point and what isn't. Most likely, many of those tags will vanish following the launch. PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) ) 19:06, July 22, 2010 (UTC) Ah... That does make sense... Thinking about it some more, I can see how the Mass Effect series wouldn't be that good of a comparison... In ME1, ME2 and the unreleased ME3, you're the same person. Thus, it would make sense that different decisons and different actions have different repercussions in the long run. Compare that to Neverwinter Nights 2 and Mask of the Betrayer: In both of those, you're the same "character". In the NWN2 campaign, you have, if you're evil, the option to turn on your entire team and kill them all in the name of the big bad guy. However, at the start of MotB, it assumes that you've killed the big bad guy anyways, even if you're using the same character that you butchered all your allies with... It's kind of weird and awkward when you think about it. In HotS and and LotV you're someone entirely different, so the decisions and repercussions wouldn't really apply. Tanooki1432 19:17, July 22, 2010 (UTC) Having played through most of the campaign, the amount of forced branching is pretty minimal. From what I've seen, you may have to complete almost all missions. A few (generally ending character chains) require you to choose one of two mission variants. (I can't give examples yet, as I don't want to spoil anything.) PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) ) 23:07, July 28, 2010 (UTC) On a more technical aspect... I've been working on some "plot brackets" (sort of like the ones we have for spoilers right now, and which will be converted to the new form if the plot ones work out). I envision that a section of history may potentially have multiple bracketed areas. However, since Blizzard seems to already have a canonical path in mind, later on we'll need to indicate the canonical path. When that happens, do we want to keep all the brackets in place but simply change the relevant ones to say "this branch contains the canonical path"? Or will we be rewriting/rearranging things so the "main" historical/biographical section will have only the canonical events (without brackets), with the rest of the brackets (with the alternate paths) being stuffed into some "alternate history" section. If we're leaving the brackets in place and just changing their titles, then I may need to build that functionality into the templates. - Meco (talk, ) 01:42, July 29, 2010 (UTC) I think everything will be resolved with the release of the Wings of Liberty novels. No one can branch a book, books are never interactive. -- [[User:Andra2404|'Andra2404']] !WARNING! Badge collector !WARNING! 14:13, September 9, 2010 (UTC) :Choose Your Own Adventure books would like to have a word with you. -- 19:04, September 13, 2010 (UTC) ::Gulp..... Guess I should reformulate my proposition: "Not everyone can branch a book, books are very rarely interactive". Happy? -- [[User:Andra2404|'Andra2404']] !WARNING! Badge collector !WARNING! 16:41, September 14, 2010 (UTC) Collected Blizzard Comments April 2010: Question: With the branching paths you can take in the single-player campaign, like choosing to grab the artifact, how will it affect the canon? Dustin Browder: Right now, I think we're assuming that Raynor finishes the game and that it ends in one way, but we simply won't let those choices be a part of the canon down the road. Follow-up: Back during like WC1 WC2 you pick the Alliance or the Horde game, so it'd be like that? Dustin Browder: No, it will be like, we don't talk about the colonists from Haven anymore, because it would have been your choice as to how they lived or died or whatever happened to them, right? Follow-up: So they wouldn't factor it in. Dustin Browder: We do not factor it in. That content is yours right? We have given to you, the player. You decided what happened there, we didn't decide, and it's hands-off for us down the road." Source: http://sclegacy.com/feature/3-events/670-april-19th-wings-of-liberty-fansite-qa-session September 19, 2010: You mentioned how players make choices throughout the game. One of the few complaints I’ve heard echoed about StarCraft II is that those choices that you make are based heavily around the plot that’s developing, but they end up having very little effect on the story. Instead, the choices decide mostly gameplay-related elements. Was there ever any plan or had you ever discussed having the story branch off more based off the player’s choices? We did, and there were a couple of factors that went into why we decided not to go that route. One of them, of course, was simply the cinematics we’d have to do. If we had a really widely varying game, we’d have to create multiple end cinematics, and if we wanted those to be pre-renders, that wouldn’t have been feasibly possible for us. At that point, they could have been in-game cutscenes, of course, which I think look pretty good. That’s an option we could have chosen. But the second factor is more of a creative choice. We’re even now struggling with this a little bit with what has happened in Wings of Liberty. There isn’t really a canon. We felt like a lot of our players and we ourselves wanted to know what happened. We wanted to have that sense of story. While other games – Mass Effect being a great example – do embrace that sort of player-chosen story, and that’s really one of the core hooks for their entire game – that’s really what their game is about – we didn’t feel like that made as much sense for our game. We felt like people want to know, “How did StarCraft end?” not “Which ending did you get?” That’s very subjective. I don’t know why we felt like that was right for StarCraft, but obviously for Mass Effect that’s not the case. Some fans out there look at games and want to say, “One size fits all.” Some people ask where storytelling in games is going and think it has to go one way or another. That’s not a satisfactory answer for them. It’s either the Mass Effect way or the StarCraft way, and that’s what it has to be. We view it as more of a continuum. It can be any way that makes sense for the game. What makes sense for Mass Effect may not feel right for StarCraft. I don’t have a harder, math answer for you, but it felt right to us that StarCraft had a canon, that there was an ending that everyone can understand. I agree that there’s room for both those types of games. It definitely seemed to me as I played through, though, that were remnants of you considering doing multiple endings. For example -- and without getting into too many spoilers about the end of the game for readers who might not have finished it -- a lot of times throughout the story, a crew member or someone will confront Raynor and ask him, “What’s going to happen when you meet Kerrigan?” And he constantly brings up this idea of how it’s going to be up to him. It’s his choice. Nobody else is going to affect it. As I was building up to that, I kept wondering, as Raynor, am I going to be able to choose what happens? Things like that struck me as remnants of a change in design. That particular line was actually not a remnant, but you’re right that they exist. We had many discussions about what we wanted to do, and a lot of the choices that we settled on between Tosh and Hanson and some of the characters where you make significant decisions about their fate, that’s us paying homage to that type of gameplay. We find that fun, and we want to include some of it, but we still want to have canon when it ends. The lines you’re talking about really are designed to build tension for what’s going to happen in the end-game scenario. What will Raynor decide to do? It wasn’t trying to imply choice, but I totally see why you would have thought that. That makes sense to me. Maybe we were telegraphing something there that we should have been more careful with. Source: http://gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2010/09/19/afterwords-starcraft-ii.aspx?PostPageIndex=2 BlizzCon 2010: Sure, yea I can say that we do say that the A choice that you made, was the canon decision. So, in terms of the SC canon, Raynor sided with Tosh and Raynor helped the colonists against Selendis. That said, I really would like to not have any player feel like their choice has been invalidated. In general, except for when the implications become overpowering, I think I'm going to try to stay away from going back and examining that stuff except when we really need to, so that you can play the game and really feel like your choices are being carried forward, and we do have the technology to check your save-game by the way. Source: BlizzCon 2010 StarCraft II Lore Panel Collected here for future debating purposes. I consider all three (despite the contradictions) to be worth a lot more than the DVD info. PSH aka Kimera 757 (talk) ) 23:46, October 26, 2010 (UTC) And now, the clearest info yet: Blizzard has clarified their position on canon, stating that while the "A" choice is canon, they wrote things later so a player's choice is never invalidated. We’ve had a discussion about that and there’s a couple ways we’d like to handle it but we have to have canon in that this is the definite choice. So what we’ve come up with is what we call the “A” choice is always canon. So in that case it would be siding with Hanson so that she is alive. Siding with Tosh and choosing on Char to take out the air platform. However, we’re trying not to actively deny that your experience has never happened. So what we’re doing is, if we ever need to reference something, we have a canon version. But the truth is, my preference is to just avoid those topics all together so that your experience is never invalidated. So you play Wings of Liberty and you make certain choices as you go forward in the StarCraft Universe. You don’t run into anything that invalidates your previous choices. Source: Blizzcon: Interview with StarCraft 2 Lead Writer Brian Kindregan.